The phrase is sometimes continued as, in vīnō vēritās, in aquā sānitās, ‘in wine there is truth, in water there is (good) health’.[1]
I’m not sure how a chemical injected into the veins will make a person suddenly honest.
I can see how it might make a person less inclined to lie out of fear or something else that can be tempered, but if the subject has convinced themselves of a certain version of events, they will state that truth as casually as if they were sober, I think.
At best, it’s a case of what a person would say while intoxicated, i.e. it isn’t their true testimony. If you didn’t say it while being of sound mind, is it really your testimony? It’s like telling a kid “it’s opposite day, would you push your little sister in front of a truck?” And they say yes and now you’re saying they’re crazy when that’s not at all what they told you.
Here’s a thought experiment. Give an appropriate dose of this to Trump, and ask him who’s ruining the country. Dollars to doughnuts he’s not going to say he is, he’s going to say Democrats and illegal immigrants. That’s his truth, he believes it, and he’ll say it under the influence of a narcotic substance, I’m sure.
I don’t think that the drug itself makes a subject tell the truth. It’s more probably that it leave them in a disorientation state that facilities an interrogator to get the required answers by leveraging that disorientation. To a degree is similar as many job interviews where is useful to create a climate of confidence so that the person being questioned feel more inclined to say things they usually won’t say. These things won’t be truths themselves but will facilitate an expert interviewer to connect the dots.
